And so we proceeded into the woods. It felt natural out here, it felt right to be here. There were no words,
no talk of planning. I led, and the females followed. I took cautious sniffs of the air. Listened keenly
for sounds. For a while, nothing. An eerie calm. The rustling of leaves in the wind, the crunch of the
forest floor beneath our paw pads. I began to grow worried. Would I fail? Would they see me as weak? What
would they do if...
"Oh man..." I heard a voice up ahead. I stopped. The girls did too.
"When I said I was feeling horny, I didn't mean..."
And at those words, I took off running, dropping to all fours as naturally as if I was always meant to. That
was it. It had to be. It had to. The girls kept pace. They knew what I knew.
Sure enough, there he was. Stumbling like a drunken idiot (probably because he was a drunken idiot) through
the forest. Half-changed like us. Only he was changing into a stag. Antlers began to grow from his
forehead. Feet were hooves and he was not used to it.
He never stood a chance. With a growl of a roar, I leaped for him, biting hard on his throat. The girls
follow suit, tackling him to the ground. I stepped back as the girls ate ravenously, changing further as I
had in the dining hall. This was for them, after all. The carnage, the gore, the sustenance. I wasn't
killing for myself. I was providing for the pack. My pack.
It was amazing watching them change. Was this what it looked like for me? My eyes lingered most on the alpha
female. She was breathtaking. And with each bite, she became even more so. I wanted her. I needed her.
She was to be mine.
"RRrryyyou do good..." she finally said as she stepped away from the remains, mostly skeletal now. The other
girls were gnawing on the bones, getting to the marrow beneath. She was just as much changed as I was now.
We were truly equals.
"I... accept you... alpha," just like me, words were hard to form for her. But she knew she had to say them.
She padded forward, and nuzzled me, getting a spat of blood on my snout.
"Thank you," she said softly. And I knew right then that I was hers as much as she was mine.